Pleasant Surprises of the Year

[Lee]

So far, I've had a few pleasant surpries this year of new
to me varieties.

1. Livingston's Marvelous - Has truly lived up to it's name. The plant has been realatively healthy, provided decent production of 6-8oz fruits, and the taste has been quite excellent.

2. Lime Green Salad - Nice contatiner grown green when ripe. Very good flavor with excellent production. My plant dropped almost no blossoms this year. The fruit that didn't get larger earlier, are now doing so since I've picked all the other fruit off. Of course, the LGS sorbet at TP IV helped put this one on the list too.

3. Grandfather Ashlock - Mine died of TSWV, but I'm including this one because it has been producing like
gangbusters in my Dad's garden. The taste is incredible as it has a nice tart bite, but not as overpowering as Jaunne Flamee. The plant puts out nice 16-24oz pink fruits. This is a real winner.... except for its low disease
tolerance (for me anyway). This is the first OP tomato
my dad has ever really praised for being so good. He still likes his Celebrities, etc....

4. Cuostralee - Kind of low production this year, but the
taste still beats anything out there. Had one the other day
that reminded me why I love summer. Yummo!


Lee

[jerseyjohn61]

Lee,
happy with your initial success with GFA as i picked
my first one of those rascals today. It will have to
wait till Sunday for full rippening. A very handsome
19 oz fellow that had been hiding in the central
dense foliage. Hope we like that tart taste as much.

Saddly, I also had to cut off a green 26 oz sweet-
heart that I have been cheering on for ages now.
It took on a soft white spot and am sick over the
loss.

Should i even mess with its seeds? I think not, but
folks please give me your input. It had no blush as
it was still light green. Still have two small fruits on
the plant that i will baby....JJ61

P.S. GFA has been the most perfectly proportioned
and handsome of all the large toms i've harvested
this year. Will grow again regardless of this years
taste.

Thanks goes out to C(K)arl Ashlock for his
generousity in keeping his granddad's tradition
alive. Me thinks it's a winner so far.

[sliphorn]

One of my pleasant surprises this year has been Chianti Rose, an OP cross from Renee's Garden. It's a big luscious pink beefsteak with great flavor. I've also been enjoying Evergreen, Golden Queen (Livingston), and Flamme. Aint growing t'maters grand?

[Fert1]

Two new ones I tried this year that have been better than I expected are:

Sioux - I knew it would have good production, but the flavor was remarkably good. I got seeds from this one in a trade, which was the only reason I planted it.

Azoychka - Tasty and performed well until disease took it. These were free seeds included in an order from TGS. Nice little freebie.

I have to agree that Marvelous really was marvelous. I didn't grow it this year, but got to taste it at Tomatopalooza. It was one of the stand-outs for me.

[montanamato]

Victoria-PL and red, about 4-8 oz. Just getting a few to taste, really good. Stood up to the heat, hoppers and wind better than 20 other PL varieties.

Red Beauty-RL, nice small oblate beefsteaks, deep red and great. Doing well in the garden and in a container.

Also received some Yates Beefsteak,County Agent and Valiant from my mothers garden. Her County Agent was over 5 ft and had about 15 fruits over 8 oz. They are very nice, I had a taste there and brought a few home. The Yates are a little sweet, but nice production and good size.

Others I will probably invite back are Persey, Akers Plum Pink, Hawaiin, Concrete Red, and Gail's Sweet Plum.
Luckily still have a few new ones to ripen this week, but the above mentioned are tops so far of the new ones this year.

Jeanne

[gardenmama]

Three new to me varieties that really knocked my socks off this year were:

Tennessee Heirloom- large, extremely meaty 12-18 oz, pink beefsteak fruits with juicy complex flavor. It had everything, a hint of sweetness at the beginning of the bite, a tangy burst when chewing then a lingering full bodied richness on the palate. Good disease tolerance too! Had a touch of CMV at the first but out grew it. PL foliage

Jeff Davis- Heavy producer and fairly disease resistant until the high temps (100+ the last few days) hit. Also nice complex flavor, and fruits that hold well after being picked. PL foliage

Green Giant - Not a speck of disease on this gorgeous PL plant. I got it planted late so it hasn't set as much fruit as it could have before the heat and humidity set in but the few fruits I have picked were absolutely delightful. Fun sparkling taste at the first, but with a few deeper tastes when savoring on the tongue. Large (12-18 oz) too!

I agree with Lee about the workhorse property of Lime Green Salad, I have 2 in pots and they have cranked out the fruits for over 8 weeks now and are still putting out the flowers! One, in a pot with coleus and peppers, has some disease the other, in a pot by itself, looks as healthy as it did in late May. This one will be welcomed in my garden every year.

[MawkHawk]

2 surprises:

I grew Yellow Canary for the first time and it turned out to be a spit-out. Yuck.

I also grew Lime Green Salad for the first time and, maybe is the weather or something, but it tastes terrible. Just bad. Maybe I did something wrong.

However, deer rampaged thru my tomatoes recently and only took a bite out of most of them, but ate all of the LGS. So go figure....

Sioux has turned out to be good, quite productive, and good tasting. Might be my new main crop next year.

[tomatoguy]

1. Ashleigh - Awesome midseason performer. Fruit average over a pound with some almost 2. Huge red tangy beefsteaks. Highly fluted at top.

2. Big Red - Produces early, mid and late season. Very tasty full flavor. Thinskinned but no cracking. Actually it is a medium large pink but that's okay.

3. Granny Cantrell's German Red - largest plant I have ever grown at 11-12 feet and counting. Late season performer. Very tangy smooth textured tomatoes. Also a misnomer since it is a pale pink.

Last year's best pleasant surprise was New Big Dwarf which I will continue to grow every year.


mater

[nctomatoman]

So....can people confirm the color of Granny Cantrell? I thought sure that it was red last year at Tomatopalooza (as brought by Gary Millwood himself) - Gary sent me seeds, and mine grew pink this year.

Pleasant surprises thus far -

The F1 Dwarf varieties Sleazy A and Sneezy and Witty

Anna Banana Russian - nice bright yellow version of Anna Russian

Marmande - not wow in flavor, but a tomato machine growing in a pot!

Katinka - very nice large golden orange cherry, not quite as sweet as Sungold but another tomato machine, and delicious when very ripe.

Liz Burt - one of Keith's, very nice sweet pink

Farmer's market potato leaf pink #2 - enormous pink fruit, from a fruit I purchased at the Raleigh market in 1999, labeled German Johnson but obviously not!

All in all not a great tomato year for me - and the deer got into my garden (fuse blew on my fence) - they are now getting their share!

[Cecilia_MD7a]

Milka's Red Bulgarian has been a pleasant surprise for me. It took a long time to start setting fruit, but now it's been producing lots of huge red beefsteaks that are very tasty. This one's a keeper.

[bigcheef]

Good to see you found your way over here Mater!

You and I will have to try that Tennessee Heirloom out next year!

A few of my pleasant surprises:

Polish C,
Seed purchased from Sandhill. Huge healthy RL plant has produced loads of pink beefsteaks, most over 1 pound with a few right around 2. The plant is now about 4 ft. wide and 7-8 ft. tall and still crankin out the fruit.

Lime Green Salad,
I second what has been said earlier about this “mighty midget”.

Brandywine (Sudduth’s) Cross,
Seed from Earl. Out of a pack of BWS seed, this was the only RL plant to germinate. I kept it to see what I’d get and was pleasantly surprised to the max! Large pink beefsteaks very similar to BWS in color and taste, (I may even like the cross better) but production was about twice that of my normal BWS.

Lucky Cross Cross,
This one is a RL plant germinated from Lucky Cross seed saved last year. I grew LC right next to Juliet, so I’m guessing this is their offspring. Taste is really great for the smaller “roma” shaped fruit. Plant is very tall yielding fruit all the way up.

RIK